Annotation of src/usr.bin/sudo/TROUBLESHOOTING, Revision 1.2
1.1 millert 1: FAQ and troubleshooting tips for Sudo
2: =====================================
3:
4: Q) Sudo compiles but when I run it I get "Sorry, sudo must be setuid root."
5: and sudo quits.
6: A) Sudo must be setuid root to do its work. You need to do something like
7: `chmod 4111 /usr/local/bin/sudo'. Also, the filesystem sudo resides
8: on must *not* be mounted with the nosuid mount option or sudo will
9: not be able to work. Another possibility is you may have '.' in
10: your $PATH before the directory containing sudo. If you are going
11: to have '.' in your path you should make sure it is at the end.
12:
1.2 ! millert 13: Q) Sudo never gives me a chance to enter a password using PAM, it just
! 14: says 'Sorry, try again.' three times and quits.
! 15: A) You didn't setup PAM to work with sudo. On Linux this generally
! 16: means installing sample.pam as /etc/pam.d/sudo.
! 17:
1.1 millert 18: Q) Sudo is setup to log via syslog(3) but I'm not getting any log
19: messages.
20: A) Make sure you have an entry in your syslog.conf file to save
21: the sudo messages (see the sample.syslog.conf file). The default
22: log facility is local2 (changeable via configure). Don't forget
23: to send a SIGHUP to your syslogd so that it re-reads its conf file.
24: Also, remember that syslogd does *not* create log files, you need to
25: create the file before syslogd will log to it (ie: touch /var/log/sudo).
26: Note: the facility ("local2.debug") must be separated from the
27: destination ("/var/adm/sudo.log" or "@loghost") by
28: tabs, *not* spaces. This is a common error.
29:
30: Q) When sudo asks me for my password it never accepts what I enter even
31: though I know I entered my password correctly.
32: A) If your system uses shadow passwords, it is possible that sudo
33: didn't detect this. Take a look at the generated config.h file
34: and verify that the C function used for shadow password lookups
35: was detected. For instance, for SVR4-style shadow passwords,
36: HAVE_GETSPNAM should be defined (you can search for the string
37: "shadow passwords" in config.h with your editor). Note that
38: there is no define for 4.4BSD-based shadow passwords since that
39: just uses the standard getpw* routines.
40:
41: Q) I don't want the sudoers file in /etc, how can I specify where it
42: should go?
43: A) Use the --sysconfdir option to configure. Ie:
44: configure --sysconfdir=/dir/you/want/sudoers/in
45:
46: Q) Can I put the sudoers file in NIS/NIS+ or do I have to have a
47: copy on each machine?
48: A) There is no support for making an NIS/NIS+ map/table out of
49: the sudoers file at this time. A good way to distribute the
50: sudoers file is via rdist(1). It is also possible to NFS-mount
51: the sudoers file.
52:
53: Q) I don't run sendmail on my machine. Does this mean that I cannot
54: use sudo?
55: A) No, you just need to run use the --without-sendmail argument to configure
56: or add "!mailerpath" to the Defaults line in /etc/sudoers.
57:
58: Q) When I run visudo it uses vi as the editor and I hate vi. How
59: can I make it use another editor?
60: A) Your best bet is to run configure with the --with-env-editor switch.
61: This will make visudo use the editor specified by the user's
62: EDITOR environment variable. Alternately, you can run configure
63: with the --with-editor=/path/to/another/editor.
64:
65: Q) Sudo appears to be removing some variables from my environment, why?
66: A) Sudo removes the following "dangerous" environment variables
67: to guard against shared library spoofing, shell voodoo, and
68: kerberos server spoofing.
69: IFS
70: LOCALDOMAIN
71: RES_OPTIONS
72: HOSTALIASES
73: ENV
74: BASH_ENV
75: LD_*
76: _RLD_*
77: SHLIB_PATH (HP-UX only)
78: LIB_PATH (AIX only)
79: KRB_CONF (kerb4 only)
80: KRB5_CONFIG (kerb5 only)
81:
82: Q) How can I keep sudo from asking for a password?
83: A) To specify this on a per-user (and per-command) basis, use the 'NOPASSWD'
84: tag right before the command list in sudoers. See the sudoers man page
85: and sample.sudoers for details. To disable passwords completely,
86: run configure with the --without-passwd option or add "!authenticate"
87: to the Defaults line in /etc/sudoers. You can also turn off authentication
88: on a per-user or per-host basis using a user or host-specific Defaults
89: entry in sudoers.
90:
91: Q) When I run configure, it dies with the following error:
92: "no acceptable cc found in $PATH".
93: A) /usr/ucb/cc was the only C compiler that configure could find.
94: You need to tell configure the path to the "real" C compiler
95: via the --with-CC option. On Solaris, the path is probably
96: something like "/opt/SUNWspro/SC4.0/bin/cc". If you have gcc
97: that will also work.
98:
99: Q) When I run configure, it dies with the following error:
100: Fatal Error: config.cache exists from another platform!
101: Please remove it and re-run configure.
102: A) configure caches the results of its tests in a file called
103: config.cache to make re-running configure speedy. However,
104: if you are building sudo for a different platform the results
105: in config.cache will be wrong so you need to remove config.cache.
106: You can do this by "rm config.cache" or "make realclean".
107: Note that "make realclean" will also remove any object files
108: and configure temp files that are laying around as well.
109:
110: Q) I built sudo on a Solaris >= 2.6 machine but the resulting binary
111: doesn't work on Solaris <= 2.5.1. Why?
112: A) Starting with Solaris 2.6, snprintf(3) is included in the standard
113: C library. To build a version of sudo on a >= 2.6 machine that
114: will run on a <= 2.5.1 machine, edit config.h and comment out the lines:
115: #define HAVE_SNPRINTF 1
116: #define HAVE_VSNPRINTF 1
117: and run make.
118:
119: Q) When I run "visudo" it says "sudoers file busy, try again later."
120: and doesn't do anything.
121: A) Someone else is currently editing the sudoers file with visudo.
122:
123: Q) When I try to use "cd" with sudo it says "cd: command not found".
124: A) "cd" is a shell builtin, you can't run it as a command since
125: a child process (sudo) cannot affect the current working directory
126: of the parent (your shell).
127:
128: Q) When I try to use "cd" with sudo the command completes without
129: errors but nothing happens.
130: A) Some SVR4-derived OS's include a /usr/bin/cd command for reasons
131: unfathomable. A "cd" command is totally useless since a child process
132: cannot affect the current working directory of the parent (your shell).
133:
134: Q) How do you pronounce `sudo'?
135: A) soo-doo (for superuser do).
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